Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Veja - Is Another World Possible?

Veja is "just a drop in the ocean", they state on their website. Luckily for us, this drop exists and there are becoming more and more of them.

With organic cotton from the Northeast of Brazil, wild Amazonian rubber and ecological leather; Veja is working under three main principles:

1. Using ecological inputs

2. Using fair-trade cotton and latex

3. Respecting workers' dignity

In order to reduce CO2 emissions, all trainers and accessories are transported by boat from Porto Alegre, Brazil to Le Havre, France. From there they travel in barges along the canals to the Parisian suburbs.

They use recycled paper and cardboard for their packaging, and finally Veja uses ENERCOOP (a cooperative of green electricity) in their headquarters instead of EDF (the French national nuclear energy supplier).

"Let's try to offer a different vision which combines fair-trade and ecology and links together economy, social initiatives and the environment. A vision that proposes cultural change."